


Many A Thing You Know You'd Like To Tell Her

by thrace



Category: Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-09 23:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thrace/pseuds/thrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alicia trusts well; Kalinda not at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Many A Thing You Know You'd Like To Tell Her

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for mosca for femslash10.

Alicia is surprised on two levels to receive a call from the Chicago Police Department at one in the morning regarding a Kalinda Sharma. The first level is that Kalinda's been arrested. It's a fairly mild surprise; Kalinda has never explicitly told her how she does what she does, but Alicia knows it can't possibly be all legal. The second level is that she's getting called at all. She manages not to ask questions just then, instead hurriedly pulling on jeans and a sweater and driving downtown. She runs the usual lines on the arresting officer--what evidence do you have, was there probable cause, you can't hold my client, I'll wait here while you release her. But when Kalinda comes sauntering out of lockup looking for all the world as though she's just there to visit, Alicia blurts "Why'd you call me?"

Kalinda seems taken aback, if Alicia is reading her head tilt correctly. "Who else would I call?" she asks. 

"I don't know. Will. Diane. One of your cop buddies. Don't you know half the cops in Chicago?" says Alicia. 

"Would you call your boss if you were arrested?" Kalinda counters. "And I do know half the cops in Chicago. I got arrested by the other half."

Outside, Alicia offers to drive Kalinda home, but she demurs in favor of a cab. 

"Oh please," says Alicia, trying not to roll her eyes. "You already asked me to come get you. You're really not going to accept a ride?"

Kalinda smirks a little, mostly at herself. "Fine. We need to make a stop on the way."

Alicia would sigh, but it wouldn't do any good.

*

Kalinda's stop is an ATM, where she withdraws a decent sum of cash. Alicia can't quite make out how much it is exactly, but the stack of twenties is too thick to be pin money. Kalinda returns to the car, money tucked neatly away in a small envelope in her pocket. "Let's go," she says, punching an address into the GPS.

They end up in a run-down section of apartment buildings, close to Englewood. "This is me," says Kalinda.

Alicia is openly skeptical. "Really. You live here."

Kalinda shrugs. "I didn't say that. I'm just getting out here." She reaches for the handle, but Alicia beats her to it and hits the child lock. Kalinda sits back, looking amused at the inconvenience.

"You're not wandering around this neighborhood at two A.M. alone with a huge wad of cash in your pocket," says Alicia.

"Oh, are you offering to come with me?" Kalinda asks.

Alicia can't figure out if she wants to say yes or no. She can just see the crime scene, police officers swarming and rollers flashing as they wonder over two robbed and murdered women. "I'm asking you not to do whatever you're about to do," she says at last.

Kalinda leans over, not at all shy about invading Alicia's personal space, and releases the lock. "Go home, Alicia," she says. "I'll be fine."

"I can wait for you right here," says Alicia. 

Kalinda pauses, and for a moment she regards Alicia very closely. It's the kind of searching look Kalinda uses when she's working, and Alicia doesn't like that Kalinda's work seems to be taking her to some fairly dangerous places. "You've done enough. Thanks for picking me up. But you should get your car out of this neighborhood." She's gone faster than Alicia can protest, walking up to an apartment building with her hands in her coat pockets, head down. The closest street light is nothing but a weak flutter of yellow thirty yards away, and Kalinda vanishes into the night as easily as though she were never there.

Alicia almost resolves to stay, to wait it out, but after her fourth nervous 360-degree perimeter check, she concedes. Kalinda knows what she's doing, as usual.

*

Alica wakes up feeling exhausted, not just from an interrupted night of sleep, but from lying awake, wondering if she should go back or at least give Kalinda a call. She blows through her morning routine, hustles Zach and Grace off to school and gets in to work early. Every person who walks into the office is not Kalinda, until she looks up and sees a crown of glossy black hair above a crisp leather jacket weaving through the cubicles. Alicia tries not to bolt out of her chair as she hurries to make an interception at the coffeepot. "Kalinda," she hisses. 

"Good morning," says Kalinda, inspecting the pot to see if it's fresh. 

"Are you okay?" Alicia asks, keeping her voice low.

Kalinda dismisses the coffee and turns to Alicia. "Why wouldn't I be?" She looks Alicia up and down. "And why are you whispering?"

Alicia stands back on her heels, suddenly feeling foolish for having worried so much, and then angry at Kalinda for making her feel foolish. "Maybe because you called me in the middle of the night to get you out of jail and then take you to one of the worst neighborhoods in the city with an envelope full of cash." She doesn't realize her voice is rising steadily until Chrissie the secretary passes by, looking at them askance. Alicia subsides, though she's no less frustrated. "You owe me an explanation."

"I think I'm more in the mood for espresso," Kalinda says, and walks away. But she looks over her shoulder, her intent plain, and Alicia follows.

*

As they walk to the nearest Starbucks, Kalinda begins speaking, her tone genial and light. "Remember last week, how we got the first look at the preliminary autopsy data?"

"Yes," Alicia says slowly. She wonders if she's ever had a single personal conversation with Kalinda in which she isn't playing catch-up.

"I have a buddy at the coroner's office," says Kalinda. 

"You have a lot of buddies," says Alicia.

"Exactly. And friendships take work."

"Was that what last night was? Work?" Alicia stops Kalinda with a hand on her arm, ignoring the way Kalinda glances down at it as though Alicia has just committed a grave error. "I'm willing to accept that you get the results you do because you bend the rules, but if you're bribing someone--"

Kalinda stops her with a glance. "I thought I was the cynic."

Alicia waits her out, feeling the sting of the rebuke but unwilling to stop pressing forward. She's earned a little leeway. "You're right, friendships do take work. And I don't want our friendship to just be me asking you for favors and you taking me to bars to get drunk. I want you to trust me. I trust you." She can feel Kalinda closing herself off until she's nothing but a Kalinda-shaped empty space. 

"And what did trust get you? A trip to a bad neighborhood in the middle of the night," says Kalinda, albeit with the smallest of smiles. She resumes walking, and this time Alicia doesn't follow.

*

The rest of the work day is awful; she's tired, she's mad at Kalinda--or Kalinda is mad at her, she's not entirely sure--and while she was out getting zero answers, she missed a client's time-sensitive phone call. She doesn't see Kalinda all day and she ends up staying later than she thought she would, which means she's going to be late for dinner. She gathers up her things, longing to have a bath and turn in early. When she looks up from her purse, Kalinda is in her doorway. "Uh, hi," she says.

"I found security camera footage for you," she says.

"Excuse me?" asks Alicia, wondering if this was what Kalinda did with her day.

"Something to confirm your client's alibi. He's in the clear."

Alicia blinks. "Wow. Thank you." Kalinda starts to breeze off in that easy way of hers, but Alicia calls out, stopping her. "I'm sorry," she says.

Kalinda just stands at the threshold of Alicia's office with a look of studied neutrality. "About what?"

"For implying that you would...that you were bribing someone. I meant it when I said I trust you."

Kalinda bites her lip, making Alicia oddly nervous. "I'm sorry too," she says.

Alicia thinks she might faint dead away from shock. "Really? I mean--really?" Kalinda Sharma is apologizing to her in a tone of total sincerity, looking for all the world as though she might start scuffing the floor with the toe of her boot. But of course she doesn't.

"You were concerned. I didn't mean to be so abrupt. I just don't like being questioned. About anything."

Alicia has to snort at that. "Oh, really. I never knew."

Kalinda's face breaks, a self-deprecating smile smoothing out the crinkle in her brow. 

"What are you doing here so late?" Alicia asks, now that they're friends again. She feels like it was almost too easy.

"I could ask you the same," Kalinda points out, still with good humor, and Alicia holds up her hands. 

"Right. Of course." She stands up, shouldering her purse. "See you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Kalinda echoes. 

But it turns out Kalinda is leaving the office too, so they end up talking the same elevator down. Inside, Alicia watches Kalinda's profile out of the corner of her eye, still full of curiosity. "Kalinda," she says.

"Hm?"

Alicia's voice is gentle, completely undemanding. She doesn't want to fight. "Will you ever tell me what happened last night?"

They reach P3 and Kalinda walks into the parking garage without answering, though she seems more contemplative than put off. Alicia waits right where she is; if Kalinda dislikes being questioned, she dislikes being chased even less. Finally Kalinda turns and takes a few steps back. "As much as I can trust anyone, I trust you," she says. "It was a personal matter that needed taking care of."

Alicia realizes this is all she's going to get for now. "Ok," she says, and heads for her car. When she looks over her shoulder, Kalinda is standing in the same spot, staring after her with an inscrutability normally reserved for sphinxes. 

*

Kalinda's footage is perfect; at trial Alicia shows video of her client grocery shopping during the time of his wife's murder, and she tucks another win under her belt. Kalinda takes her to their usual place for drinks afterwards, and after a shot of tequila and a White Lady, she's gazing at Alicia with something like fondness. "That was a good job today," she says.

"I know," says Alicia, feeling the first edges of fuzziness that tell her she should stop drinking. She pushes away the remainder of her vodka martini. "I couldn't have done it without you."

Kalinda's smile fades a little, and now she looks--Alicia can't quite read her at the best of times, and two drinks in she's stuck guessing. Kalinda looks sad, but not unhappy, and nervous, but not anxious, and maybe just a touch forlorn. She's sure there's some complex German word to encapsulate all of that, but right now it just confuses her. 

Because it's been nagging her for days, Alicia asks, "How often do you drop off money in bad neighborhoods?"

Kalinda's grip tightens around her drink.

Alicia lets her hand brush against Kalinda's forearm. They don't touch often, which is probably for the best, judging from the way Kalinda's muscles only clench tighter. "It's only because I'm worried," she adds. "You don't have to tell me what you were doing, just that you're being safe."

They sit in silence for a while, the bar humming noisily around them. It's filled with other lawyers taking the edge off of another work day in the Chicago legal system and no one pays them any attention.

"When I worked for your husband, I investigated a cop who was suspected of beating his wife," says Kalinda, apropos of nothing. "He was a good detective, crappy husband. I wanted to bring him in, but he was just finishing a big case for Narcotics and the ASA on the case asked me to wait. So I waited, and one night he beat his wife badly enough to break her jaw." She sips casually at her drink, as though she's relating the day's weather.

"Kalinda, I..." Alicia doesn't know how to respond.

"Pretty much his whole unit was covering for him. The wife wasn't going to press charges either. I lost my temper."

Alicia can't help but stare. "What does that mean?"

Kalinda doesn't take her eyes off of her drink. "I burned a lot of bridges at the Sixth District."

Alicia makes the connection. "That's where you were arrested." She lets this revelation sink in for a while, excited to have another piece of the puzzle. Then she asks, "So how does the money fit in?"

Suddenly Kalinda is back to her old self. "Who says it does?" She finishes off her drink with a lopsided smile that makes Alicia laugh in spite of the somber story she just heard.

"Okay, I can wait," she says. Instinctively, she puts her hand on Kalinda's arm again. "Thank you for telling me. Whatever happened, it must have been difficult."

Kalinda watches her hand. "Alicia," she says. She brings her head up and Alicia doesn't know how she could have misinterpreted this look. There's no sadness, no anxiety, just a simple hunger. It's lust. They're sitting so close, thighs almost touching, and Kalinda has only to lean forward to find Alicia's mouth. Kalinda kisses her, and her mouth opens under the soft pressure. It lasts just long enough for Alicia to realize she's kissing another woman in a bar, that woman being Kalinda, and then she suddenly finds she's sitting alone. "Wait," she says feebly, still half-dazed.

Kalinda keeps walking, briskly, until she's gone. 

Alicia sits back a moment, then, out loud, says, "No." She stands up, barely remembers to grab her purse, and skitters down the length of the room to the front door. Outside she looks around and to her left finds Kalinda, still walking but not far off. Alicia catches up to her simply by virtue of being willing to sacrifice a little dignity to run in heels. 

"Oh, god," says Kalinda in exasperation upon seeing that Alicia is still with her. She picks up her pace.

"What was that?" Alicia demands. "Kalinda, you can't do something like that and then just take off."

"Can't I?" says Kalinda.

"You know what I mean. Kalinda. Kalinda!" Alicia manages to get in front of her, halting their headlong dash down the sidewalk.

Kalinda breaks off her stride angrily, glaring directly at Alicia. "Yes? Do you have something to say?"

Alicia's hands flop uselessly against her sides. Her mouth works a few times. "Can we sit down first?"

"Good night, Alicia," says Kalinda, brushing past her.

*

Alicia doesn't know when all her sleepless nights started becoming Kalinda-related, but that's how it feels now. She trudges into work the next day feeling keenly the combined effects of alcohol and insomnia. She swore she would never say this to herself, but she's too old for this kind of behavior. She doesn't know what she wants; she was with Peter so long and her dance with Will was so fraught she's forgotten what simple attraction feels like. She's not attracted to women--but Kalinda is not all women. She's Kalinda.

At a morning meeting to discuss their latest client, Kalinda sits at her side of the table, looking as unflappable as she always does. Alicia purses her lips throughout, waiting for a chance to pin Kalinda down, but she slips away just before the meeting ends. Alicia envies her for being able to do that; no one gives her a second glance when she leaves, even though Diane is still talking. It's simply accepted that she has reason to be elsewhere, and that her reasons will benefit the firm. 

She doesn't see Kalinda all day, and Kalinda doesn't come to her office that evening, and the next day is the same. She leaves her investigative findings with Alicia's secretary.

Finally Alicia realizes that her own methods are never going to work, and that she had better resort to other tactics. On day three of Kalinda's freezeout, she leaves work ten minutes early, finds Kalinda's car in the garage, and waits patiently. After about twenty minutes, she hears the telltale clack of boots on concrete, and Kalinda appears. Her step barely falters as she takes in the woman leaning against her car, but Alicia can tell it's there. "Let's get dinner," she says. "You can drive."

At any length, Kalinda seems to appreciate her boldness, because she doesn't say no. She takes Alicia to a little Spanish restaurant, a place they both like for its tapas and wine selection. The last time they'd eaten here Kalinda had convinced her not to order her usual chicken dishes, to try the quail and scallops, the stuffed prunes and goat cheese, to pick wine at random. She'd gone home overfull and humming the flamenco tune that had played over their dessert of poached pears in red wine and cream. She rarely gets to eat out, and rarer still without the kids. She likes doing it, for all that it happens once a month. 

Kalinda regards her steadily through the flickering candlelight that forms the centerpiece of their table. "You got me here. Now what."

Alicia considers her words carefully. "I just wanted you to know, I still trust you."

Kalinda frowns. "You can't say things like that to me, Alicia."

Alicia has a frown to match. "Why not?"

Kalinda leans forward, where her face is bathed in gold and orange from the candle. "Because I'm me, and you're you. I made a bad decision, and I'll live with it. That's all."

Dinner is silent, and nothing is as good as Alicia remembered. The car ride is silent too, because even though Alicia wanted to take a cab, Kalinda had just pierced her with a look that said don't be ridiculous and she'd gotten in. 

Kalinda takes her home; she'll take the train to work in the morning. Parked down the street from her building, Kalinda watches her, as if expecting another outburst of emotion, which Alicia is only too willing to give her. "You don't have to push me away," she says . "We're friends. Aren't we?"

Now Kalinda just looks at her lap, and doesn't answer. 

"Kalinda," Alica says, gently. "If you want me to forget it ever happened, I will. But I don't want to, and I don't think you want to either."

"You don't want to," Kalinda repeats to herself, almost angrily. "What are we going to do, Alicia? Go on dates? Have a relationship? Go home to your kids." 

Alicia is stricken by the acidity of her words but she's on the attack again. "You don't get to do that to me anymore. Brush me off, not answer. Even if we go nowhere, we still have to work together, and I'd really prefer it if you were on my side there."

Kalinda thumps the steering wheel with a fist, the sharpest display of frustration Alicia's ever seen from her. If anyone ever embodied the adage don't get mad, get even, it's Kalinda. But when she speaks, she says, "Of course I'm on your side. Aren't I always?"

Alicia touches her, this time a hand just above her knee. Kalinda, miracle of miracles, lets her own hand fall on top of Alicia's. "It wasn't a bribe," she says eventually. "The money. A friend of mine, from the sixth, he stuck up for me. He does a lot of undercover work--"

Alicia squeezes once, firmly. "You don't have to tell me," she says. And to prove it, she leans over, ignores the creak of leather and the shifter in the middle, and returns Kalinda's kiss. She feels a little thrill go off in her stomach, but mostly she feels the warmth of another mouth, the smooth press of skin, the tip of Kalinda's tongue teasing her upper lip. Kalinda's hand is still touching hers when they break apart. "Not now, anyway," she continues. "I want to know someday."

Kalinda narrows her eyes, unable to entirely hide her amusement. "I'll see you tomorrow," she says, this time not as a goodbye, but a promise.


End file.
